The King's Possession ✔️

FORTY EIGHT

Word Count: 1966

I stare out the kitchen window, watching Marek and the stranger outside.

Marek has pulled the man's hood back, tearing the cloth from around his mouth, revealing his identity. From here I can't see the man's face, but I know I wouldn't know him anyway. The man sits on the steps of the porch, head bowed weakly as he holds a palm over the wound in his neck. Marek stands before him, twisting the rope intended for me in his hand.

Marek's presence alone has rendered the man passive. I can't hear what they are discussing, but at the beginning, it seemed awfully heated. Now it's calmed down, Marek's expression solemn as he listens intently to what the stranger has to say.

A warm hand on my shoulder makes me startle.

"What is he doing out there?" Tai asks, sitting with me in the window nook, wincing as he does so. He doesn't have any external injuries, yet he still appears weak and light-headed.

"I imagine he's interrogating him," I say softly, watching my breath fog across the window.

Marek is still, listening to the man speak with a strange intensity. What could the man be admitting to that is taking so long to understand? Marek is a Hunter, and knows what he is doing , yet I still can't help my curiosity. The rain outside glides across his stoic face, bronze locks plastered to his forehead.

"You don't seem so sure," Tai murmurs, tilting his head curiously.

"What else would he be doing?" I ask with a shrug, although something dark and sinister stirs within me, like a silent warning. I'm just shaken up, knowing he was here with the intention to kill me, and could well have succeeded. My hand is bandaged, thankfully only having sustained a minor wound.

"I don't know Akara," Tai mutters, looking out the window while I concentrate on him, grateful that colour has returned to his face. "I don't know anything about him."

"Neither do I," I sigh.

Tai shifts uneasily, wincing again. I'm not sure what is hurting him, although I suspect it's a headache. His wrist does have a burn mark from where his band had once been, torn off completely once he killed the Beast. It's a strange phenomenon I want to bring up, yet can't be bothered, knowing I don't have an explanation for it.

"How are you feeling?" I ask softly, reaching out to grab a hold of his hand for both my comfort and his own. I still can't wrap my head around the fact that I nearly lost him...

"Foggy, but better than I felt when I first woke up," he admits.

"Thank you...for saving my life," I say quickly and suddenly. He pauses, regarding me impassively, as if he didn't expect me to say that. Now I owe Tai my life, and not just my hand in marriage to starve off the rebel threat. Although now that doesn't appear to be working...

Tai shakes his head, dark curls dancing across his forehead as he does so. "You're insane if you think I was going to let you kill that thing."

"How did you know that's what I planned to do?" I ask.

Tai has pushed me out of the way with such surety, putting himself in that position without a second thought. When I had turned around in that cave, I intended to simply be there if Marek needed me, and that's exactly what happened. I was ready to die for him, without realising Tai was ready to die for me.

"I didn't. But I knew that the moment it became a possibility, I wasn't going to let it happen," he tells me assuredly. My heartbeat stumbles over itself, realising that reality of what he has done for me, and how no one will do that for me again.